End of 2nd Wargames Gallery: Emperor's Children and Iron Warriors Reckoning

Unsure of who is a traitor and who is a loyalist (sounds like an Alpha Legion plot if you ask me), the Iron Warriors might takes on the Emperor's Children elegance and arrogance.  

A group of Iron Warriors terminators is attacked by the Emperor's Children assault squad. Swinging slower than the Emperor's Children, the terminators suffer massive wounds - more than enough to see the end of their days. 

In return, the Iron Warriors Siege Tyrants rain down a fire storm on the assault squad to wipe them off the board through a very rapid rout above the remains of a dead rhino. 

But the Emperor's Children are not yet done. A las cannon heavy support squad sits at the apex of a ruined tower and fires back at the siege tyrants. It isn't enough though - the tyrants are able to take them down at range and force enough unsaved wounds to wipe them clean off the board. Victory to the Iron Warriors!

End of 2nd Wargames Gallery: Salamanders test the Iron Without

Continuing the End of 2nd Wargames Gallery, this is the turn of the Iron Warriors against the Salamanders (in an apparent prelude to third edition perhaps?!). 

The Iron Warriors pour out of the Land Raider and make ready to charge into the Salamanders Praetor and assorted Isstvan survivors. The Salamanders have a handy reaction on their side though and will shoot back at full strength before the Iron Warriors make their lines.

Whittled down by one terminator, the Iron Warriors make quick work of the squad, but the Praetor stands firm and counters with his thunder hammer and (after more than this turn) is the sole survivor of this encounter. 

A larger scale overview of the situation can be seen in this second image. There's an Iron Warriors plasma support squad pumping volleys into a dreadnought which is about to exchange fire with an ordinary tactical squad. 

The tactical squad doesn't stand a chance and is readily partially eliminated and routed. 

Toward the end of the game the Iron Warriors support squad is the only one remaining whilst (a very burned and battered) dreadnought and the (rather sliced up) Praetor remains for the Salamanders after destroying the Land Raider. The game ends up a tie overall. 

End of 2nd Wargames Gallery: Corax Smashes World Eaters

Corax smashes into the World Eaters ranks to deliver a severe blow to those who would think the Raven Guard a spent and dead force. 

[I kept the scenic base on Corax here at it fitted so beautifully well!]

The second image shows a slightly wider angle, including the scene from last week, here. 

Victory in this battle went to the Raven Guard who were able to overpower both the long range firepower from the World Eaters dreadnought and dealt with the close combat threat via their Primarch moving very swiftly across the field of play. 

More Leaks Than Fishnets: Horus Heresy 3rd Edition

Yes, I saw the leaks before they were removed from Reddit. 

Its clear that some people already have the goods and are perfectly willing to post such things. I don't have a copy, nor would I post if I did. I don't have to either: there's more leaks than fishnets. 

But then some of the information was duplicated on Warhammer Community. Including the Force Organization Chart. 

On the one hand, I am rather disappointed by the fundamental changes that they have wrought. There won't be any more division of HQ-Elites-Troops-Fast Attack-Heavy Support. This has been with us for an exceptionally long time and the introduction of newer categories certainly feels very strange and unfamiliar at this particular point. 

Yet on the other hand, there certainly seems to be possibilities for new forces to be constructed without losing too much about current armies. If anything, more HQ selections (champions!) will need to be included in order to field certain arrangements. For myself, it probably won't make too much difference for my established armies and I'm grateful for that. But for the more specialised armies that I know friends have collected, I am antagonised on their behalf. 

As for the lack of glancing hits stripping hull points any longer, its certainly an interesting move. I can see how it isn't so bad though as we can still strip the hull points with repeated negatives for vehicles. The option of removing vehicles entirely instead of leaving wrecks is not in keeping with how anyone really plays the game, so I can see everyone agreeing (and tournaments ensuring) that wrecked vehicles will always become cover. 

Its shaping up to be a very fundamental re-write of the rules, not merely the "version 2.1" that the community was really hoping for. 

Warhammer Store: Metro Centre (Gateshead)

It has been a very long while since I wrote one of these pieces. Largely because my travels have slowed down a bit in recent years, coupled with the fact that I seem to visit the same old places all of the time! But lo and behold - a new place was visited recently! This time, my travels took me in the direction of Newcastle, UK. 

The Metro Centre is not even ten minutes by train away from Newcastle train station. It is a large out of town shopping mall containing lots of common UK high street stores, all under one very large (and multi-level) roof. The Centre is physically well served by rail and very regular bus connections, alongside masses of car parking space. It is a wonder more people don't come here instead of going through Newcastle itself - although I think this is at least in part the main attraction for many of the customers. 

The Warhammer store here is in the blue zone, on the upper level, and is located in "The Village" part of the centre. Handily, the Blue Zone is also where the rail and bus interchange are which makes it very accessible to those using public transport. The Village in turn is a rather salubrious part of the mall and very well appointed. 

Physically, the store is not the smallest known to humankind, but is not much bigger. The stock has a range of exactly what you might expect including paints and the basics. The staff here are very friendly and attentive and I rather enjoyed visiting and talking about Horus Heresy and 40k. Highly recommended - a very nice store, well appointed, and in a great location. Not much not to like overall!

Wargames Gallery: Targets Acquired

The World Eaters leviathan made a bit of a mess of a previous squad that tried to crack open its shell. These Raven Guard are all armed with melta weapons though and are in a suitably short range to hope to do something about the target that they've acquired. 

[Part of "Goodbye to Second Edition" -- a recurring Wargames Gallery over the next few weeks!]

Horus Heresy 3rd Edition Weapon Stats

More updates via the Warhammer community came out about the third edition this week, including today's focus on the array of modifiers that weapon stats are getting. 

The new weapon stats do away with Brutal as a rule. I see this as very good stream lining. However, what they also seem to be doing is adding some extra crunch with rules like Heavy. Instead of not moving but firing at full ballistic skill, they now get added bonuses for not moving. Such as a bonus on the number of attacks a weapon gets for staying still (like the heavy bolt gun getting 4 attacks for being stationary instead of 3). Does this mean full ballistic skill at all times? I'm deeply unclear, but it seems so. 

The modifiers to initiative and strength are nice enough, but I need to remember the acronyms which are curiously hard for me to grasp! One thing that stands out is that the power fist is now S+4 rather than Sx2 as the multiplier. That feels very peculiar!

Finally the "Gets Hot" rule now seems to be "overloaded" unless I'm reading things incorrectly. So the disintegration rifle risks disintegrating your own troops on a misfire. Bit of a risk, but I think the AP=3 and D=2 stat more than makes up for this risk. I don't quite like power axes as much as I once did though since they are just getting breaching 5+. I will need to run the math hammer on that unless someone has already beaten me to it. 

We also had the tactical statuses examined earlier in the week. In short, it looks like Routing and Running Away are all still under Leadership. But the rest of them are basically Cool tests (Pinned, Suppressed, and Stunned). Interesting here is that flamers are explicitly getting Panic which can cause routs. 

Buried in all of this is a bit of a give away that Reactions will still exist in third edition since "Stunned hampers your reactions" - or at least I have interpreted it this way. It could, alternatively, mean that you get some kind of initiative penalty. Who know. 

Crunchy Stats for Third Edition Horus Heresy

Here in June 2025, we have an article on the Warhammer Community about the new additions to the stat line for Horus Heresy. In short, Rogue Trader stats are making a return.

Direct from the text:

Leadership shows how receptive your troops are to following orders, and is used to gauge panic and rally fleeing units. Cool shows how calm your troops are under pressure and incoming fire, and it is used to avoid debuffs – such as penalties from suppressive fire.

Willpower is a more metaphysical stat, used primarily for manifesting – or resisting – psychic powers. Higher Willpower makes powers more likely to work, and you’ll take less damage from the Perils of the Warp.

Intelligence is used when interacting with technology. This could mean a Techmarine trying to fix a vehicle, or a specialist using an augur to track enemy units.

Tests are taken against the lowest characteristic in a unit, with two key exceptions. Models that have the Sergeant rule can always test on behalf of their unit, while Commanders who join units may also lend their stats to any check – an important role for middleweight characters.

The reality is that this level of complexity will certainly add more crunch to the game overall. Maybe it isn't such a bad thing. But as an old timer (I am old), I can put my hand on my heart and say that the reason that Rogue Trader stat lines were eventually abandoned was due to the complexity of the crunch and the slowing down of the game. This is maybe not ideal, but it does promise to be a little bit better perhaps. Certainly if they can make every stat a bit different rather than 7's or 8's across the board. 

The Sergeant is a good example of this with a higher Ld, but lower by one for the other entries. At least they haven't opted for the same across the board. I remain optimistic that it can and should do well. Psykers are going to have high WP - which again is good, and Ogryns low Int. All good. And crunchy. But please don't slow the game down. Speaking of which. I am concerned about the challenge sub-phase that is being introduced. Not sure what that will contain and how it is different from regular combat yet. Worried that it'll be another slowing down factor. Equally, challenges were always a bit distinct, so maybe formalising what has been is actually not going to be too bad either. Looking forward to hearing more soon!

Where are we up to this week about 3rd Edition for Horus Heresy?

Where are we up to with the new Horus Heresy 3rd Edition this week?

Still no confirmed release date. However. Games Workshop has announced a competition online which involves winning your choice of Primarch, a bunch of upgrades like resin heads and shoulder pads for a legion of your choice, as well as the relevant transfer sheet and so forth. This comes with the new boxed set. Of significance here is the small print:

• 6.2 The approximate retail value of the prize pool is £1245/$1942.5 USD/$2975 AUS/€1565. This value excludes delivery and sales tax, where applicable. 
  
  

• 8.1 A redraw, if applicable, will take place at Games Workshop, Willow Road, Nottingham NG7 2WS at 10 a.m. (UK Time) on 6th August 2025. The redraw will be made by computerised random selection.

I am left wondering about the release date of the new boxed set. It seems from this it won't be until AUGUST! That seems a long way out here at the end of May. 

The prize pool is incredible as well. GBP1245 is very high. Let's break it down. There will be 5 winners, hence each winner gets a value of GBP249. This is incredible value just by looking at it. 

We will assume that a Primarch is worth GBP100 (it isn't on average, but Magnus the Red is clearly expensive compared to Angron). Down to GBP149. 

Shoulder pads are worth GPB16. Multiplied by 4 - because there's supposed to be enough for the box - that's GBP64. Heads are the same price. So another GBP64. Add on GBP23 for the transfer sheet and we get down to GBP negative 2. And that's before any of the paint brush bundle, and the paint pot bundle. Let alone the boxed set itself. My estimate for the boxed set is somewhere in the region of GBP150. Total guess. YMMV. 

And then the Horus Hearsay page itself has updated to confirm which things were real, versus hearsay. And to be honest, there are no surprises. There's no d18 in the boxed set. Hardly a surprise. I don't think the rest is exceptionally surprising either. 

Regardless, loving the forthcoming miniatures (breachers, assault squad, and everything else). Just a bit disappointed that the three year old books are already being eliminated. 

Wargames Gallery: Contemptor Clash

For reasons that I swear made total sense at the time, two contemptor dreadnoughts that lack any melee armaments engage in close combat. 

In imagination, the combat was won by the best dancer since all of the damage was presumably done through sheer application of weight, the odd blast going off, and mostly kicks. 

For the curious, the Salamanders dreadnought won the battle against the Alpha Legion dreadnought. But only just. And it took a while. 

The Dropsite Preview / Horus Heresy 3rd Edition: Thoughts, Opinions, and Impressions

Did you watch the Dropsite Preview live? I did. And I have thoughts. Let's dive in.

First up: there is NO CONFIRMED RELEASE DATE for the new rules and the Saturnine boxed set at the time of writing. This is incredibly disappointing to say the least. I wanted to know this factoid more than anything, and have walked away from the otherwise excellent preview disheartened. The best we got was "Summer". I remain optimistic that the mean Terran Northern Hemisphere Summer. With apologies to my Antipodean friends out there. My guess at this stage is late June pre-order perhaps. 

Cinematic. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 stars. Cool. But not quite on the same level as second edition cinematic for me. I didn't like the voices too much, I have to admit. I did like the "ambushes" that seemed to take place, but of course, these were focused on the new miniatures to showcase them. No problem really. I liked the disintegration effects. And the consul charging in was very good. Would have liked to have seen the plasma in action a bit more! The teleport in could have been better too. 

Mark II Armour and Disintegration weapons. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 stars. Nothing else I could give realistically! Love this. The disintegration weapons are so good, and it is great that they are interchangeable with the rest of the range. 

Saturnine Armour.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 stars. I started out a little skeptical, but I actually really like their sheer goofiness. The terminators are massive, and the dreadnought simply epic. Amazing scale comparison to the leviathan as well. Truly amazing. 

Rules Changes. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3.5/5 stars. Rounded Down. Challenges are yet to be fully revealed, so I'll hold my tongue a little bit on them. I am optimistic. Army construction seems to be more liberal and this might be a good thing, or it might be a bad thing with too many lists drifting to become over-powerful in competitive play. Could go either way. Tactical status evolves to be more than just pinned and running away / routed, adding into the mix suppressed and stunned. Seems more tactical, but who knows. Maybe suppressed and stunned could have just remained as pinned for simplicity sake. In terms of the Stat Line Characteristics, Rogue Trader returns basically! Look, there was a reason we ditched Cool, Willpower, and Intelligence, and just rounded them down to Leadership originally. We seem to have collectively forgotten why. As an old timer let me tell you: better flowing games. I worry the extra stats will slow games down. I remain open to be convinced otherwise. But I do see the benefit of greater tactical depth for the game! The re-work of weapon profiles is actually good in my opinion. Looks like we drop (e.g.) Brutal(2) and gain D=2 instead. That's fine by me. The modifiers for Strength, Initiative, and Attacks is a nice slim lining move. I like it. 

We obviously have not seen the full extent of the rules updates. Nothing on reactions here. Are they still part of the game or not? 

Other new miniatures.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 stars. Fellblade is exciting to see in plastic. But what is a real highlight for me is the chain axe wielding jump pack marines. Oh my. The World Eaters will jump for joy. I want a box set of these already. Love the tarantulas as well (and their bigger brother in the boxed set - wow). Fantastic to see the rapiers back as well. Just tell us about drop pods for goodness sake. And those tech-marines that use them are nice as well. Possibly new cataphractii armaments. And. Finally. Plastic breacher marines. Finally. Oh my. How many years have we collectively waited for these. Since 2012 ish? Seems about right. 

Other thoughts. 
"The rules for the new edition of Warhammer: The Horus Heresy are not compatible with the rules in older books"

Boo. How long has the new Martian Civil War book been out? Not long enough. I hate the fact that we have a new edition within 3 years. All those lovely printed books outdated already. Despise this. Not good. 

I will probably just invest in the digital versions from herein to be honest. 

Very disappointing to hear that the Custodes and Sisters are not getting released along with the initial FIVE books. But spare a thought for the Daemons players out there as well, okay. And goodness knows which units will now become relegated to legacy units. I had plans dammit. And what about black shields too please? Too many unanswered issues right now. 

More Horus Hearsay

The rumour mill is seemingly running amok on the 3rd edition for Horus Heresy - and the Horus Hearsay website is keeping on turning that mill at increasing speed. Clearly there's a lot on there now and in the last few days we have seen things like cardboard dreadnoughts being prints out for battle. We all know that is going to be very low on the probability scale. So instead, I wanted to pick out something that I was personally interested in. This image, below. 

Did you know that in the metadata of this image, it is labelled as "post 25". I need to count the number of images on the page to see if they're doing it sequentially and check all the metadata, but perhaps someone else might like to do that or beat me to it.

What I like about this image is the sheer retro-feeling that it gives off. It is labelled as a multi-melta, but visually I am not 100 per cent sold on that interpretation (could be a multi-disintegrator?). Regardless, I really like the stripped-back feeling that it has to it. The detail is also really crisp and superior to yesteryear. Beautiful sculpt really. 

The other thing to notice here is the numbering. This component is number 5. Now. Usually when we are building miniatures, the core parts have the low numbers. Arms. Legs. Torsos. Shoulder pads. The weapons typically have a slightly higher number. So I think what we might be seeing here is an upgrade frame rather than a core Mark II frame? The assumed rectangles to the left and below the centre of shot are suggestive of the same as well. How many of these will we get, are they distinct to the core box itself perhaps? Not sure at this stage. But we are seeing and living in interesting times now. 

More updates and thoughts in future days, I'm sure!

Despoiler Test Model

I've still got a few Mark 6 marines left to build before the new boxed set goes on pre-order for the mark 2 marines. I've therefore decided to assemble them as Despoilers. This is the first test model, and also the squad leader.

The backpack and head are from the chaos space marines range, but is a nod to the forge world that supplies the World Eaters in general. The power fist and bolt pistol are left overs from the assault squad range, where as the base features another barrel that I chopped up to make the miniature have a more dynamic feel. I like this overall and am now intending to round out the rest of the squad soon. Small goals!

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Krios Squadron

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

3.5/5 stars, rounded down. The rules are reasonably good overall.

Background.

This is probably the final Second Edition review!!! Wow. I'm really surprised that second edition has only lived for three years. Let's see what Third Edition might bring. 

The Krios is a re-print of the Mechanicum entry, but with a new gun option which is the Irradiation Blaster. 

A battle tank that is swift and deceptively skeletal in appearance. Its armour is essentially provided by overlapping power fields and its true origin is unknown. What is known is that it falls outside of the STC constructs and therefore doesn't appear outside of mechanicum forces. 

Strengths.

The main strength of the tank comes from its primary weapon. There are THREE variants now. The first is the lightning cannon which I see as being well able to handle marines and other lighter tanks. The second is the pulsar fusil which is more of a terminator killer overall. The Irradiator Blaster if it gets a penetrating hit on a vehicle will also get a flame hit on the transported content. This is very interesting and unique. But the strength isn't great here. 

Other worthy notes here are the movement rate of 16 which makes it incredibly fast and easy to position.

Weaknesses.

Watch out for the rear armour of 10!

Builds. 

3x Krios, Lightning Cannons (375 points).

In all honesty, the "naked" version is great. I actually don't think the pulsar fusil is quite worth it. Add some hunter killer missiles to taste. The triple tank version is very nice and can take out many targets that you set your sights on short of those all round armour=14 tanks. 

Please Do Not Bring Back The Psychic Phase For Horus Heresy. But Yes to Shattered Legions.

Please do not bring back the psychic phase for the Horus Heresy.

There. I've said it. The title of the post was so important to me, I've written it again above. 

But "yes" to shattered legions. 

Link: https://thehorushearsay.com/

An AI Image Generation Experiment for Horus Heresy: The Isstvan Boxed Set!

Hello readers! Today I wanted to have a brief experimentation with how easy (or not) and how realistic (or not) it is to produce fake images of novel Horus Heresy boxed sets. This is purely an academic experiment and not meant to cause any offence or over-step any copyright claims - it is conducted under "fair use" and is a purely academic investigation. 

Given the recent "leaks" that we have all seen by now about the new boxed set, I was wondering if it were possible to create a novel boxed set that felt "authentic" but was nonetheless completely fake. I used two sources for this: both MidJourney, and ChatGPT. The results are below. 

Of course, I'd be willing to eBay or Facebook them for some 500 dollars each. But they simply don't exist. So how well has the technology done? 

To the trained eye (which is probably you and me, dear readers) they are OBVIOUSLY fake. The second image is worse and comes from MidJourney. It doesn't even have the right logos associated with it. The marine looks okay, but it's not great either. I did like the explosions in the background though. And it is certainly sitting in a car, so that looks good at least! 

The first image is better and comes from ChatGPT. The artwork of the Iron Warriors is poor though. Where are my hazard stripes? And what exactly has happened to the eye lenses? If I could improve on that, it might be better, and maybe I can, but I'm not willing to put in the time and effort here. 

Conclusion. It is easy to generate images that at first glance might look authentic, but to get them passed the trained Horus Heresy eyes is much, much harder. I think with work I could do it. Just. But its not worth the effort. My short conclusion then is that the leaks we have seen are real enough!

Saturnine

No, I'm not going to link it. But it is readily found by looking in some of the more obvious places on the interwebs. 

Just some brief thoughts. Firstly, it appears that most of the rumours are entirely true. We are seeing a large boxed set with 40 new mark 2 space marines, a praetor in the same armour, along with 2 sets of 3 saturnine terminators, a praetor in the same armour, a saturnine dreadnought, two sets of disintegrator weapons, and a quad gun platform. These all appear to come with templates, dice, instructions, transfers, reference cards, and a book that (as far as I can make out) is called the third edition rules. 

Honestly, I love what I'm seeing! I get that some others don't like the aesthetic, but I absolutely do! It is going to be an automatic purchase for me in less than 399 hours time!

I wonder what else will go on pre-order at the same hour?

What I hope we will NOT see is the need for entirely new units and entire rules replacements for everything. I just cannot believe it is going to be an entire new system a mere three years out from second edition's launch. We just need a tidy up of the rules, not re-built from the ground up. Pretty please?

Hours Heresy 2e Review: Decimator

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4/5 stars. Good for close combat, but not for ranged.

Background.

Designed as the antidote to the leviathan, the Heresy would see them infused with malevolent warp powers and used for the traitor side. They are much like a dreadnought otherwise!

Strengths.

The stat line reads like a dreadnought and it comes with a suite of special rules such as hammer of wrath (2) and furious charge (2) which help with its core mission. It re-rolls saves against low strength firepower thanks to Malevolent Artifce which means that bolt guns probably will not be taking it down. 

Where it really shines are the decimator claws that it comes with. These are AP=2 with Brutal (3) hitting at S=8 which is impressive and very intimidating.  

Weaknesses.

I do not hold a high regard for the ranged weapons to be very honest. The butcher cannon doesn't pump out enough shots for my tastes but it is sufficient for low value AP tanks arguably, whereas the soul burner is actually okay for softening up a target. Keep to the claws and get in combat as quickly as you can!

Builds.

Decimator, 2 Claws (265 points).

This is the non-upgraded version that is purely focused on close combat and it really shines for this battlefield role. You just have to get there with movement rate=7. 

Primarch Corvus Corax Painted

Corvus Corax - Primarch of the XIXth Legion - Fully painted!

This is a project that I started years ago, but have not finished until recently. I had a bit of a "painter's mental block" on this project until a few weeks ago. I'm not sure if that is a real thing or not, but if writer's block is real, then I'm just going to assert that painter's block is also real. I'm not quite sure what it was. 

The pinions were certainly part of it which I did want to airbrush initially, but veered away from in the end. I'm not sure if I've done them justice or not using traditional painting, but it'll do. The blend from grays to blacks all over was challenging, but the sheer detail in the sculpt helped along the way no end. 

I also didn't know what type of legionary Corax's opponent was until I started the World Eaters project of mine - this decided it in the end as ultimately this was going to be very Isstvan in origin if I could help it. I've applied some decals to the World Eater to give it a bit more impact.

The broken tiles were also a challenge until I decided upon the alternating pattern that I've painted up some of the older scenery in my collection with. Deciding which tile was going to be blue, and which was going to be vanilla was surprisingly difficult to envision across the broken nature of the diorama. Some were just guesses, but others were trying to visualize what the tiles would have looked like before Corax smashed into them. I think I've got this bit almost right overall. 

The debris is picked out in two tones as well. I was going to just go for rock grey initially, but the base of the miniature cried out in more earthy colours. This was also a point of indecision, which ultimately also went for two-tones in the end. The larger slabs are picked out in the grey colour, whereas the smaller debris is the earthy brown colour overall. They provide a surprisingly nice contrast to each other without either seeming out of place or dominating. This is rounded off by some splashes of metallic paint and night haunt gloom technical blue paint streaked here and there. 

Speaking of technical paint. The blood for the blood god paint is just brilliant once again with the World Eater. Although the core of the chest has this painted on, I've added more sploshes to the chain blade as well as the pistol hand as it lets go of the side arm in the moment. Contrast red paint has also been flicked over the surface to round it all off. This is a legionary who chanced his luck against the enemy lord and fell very short indeed.

Corax himself was also a bit challenging in his own right due to the sheer detail in the sculpt. I could have gone further by having the pouches painted in a leathery colour, but held back on that and opted for the matte off-black shade instead. I'm not sure the dry brushing on these has paid off, but I am satisfied regardless. 

And his face. Oh my. That took a lot of effort to get even vaguely right. I mis-painted one of the pupils in the eyes as well first time and had to correct this. That was a pain and very embarrassing. The face, if anything, was intended to be a bit more pale, but given that he's probably been fighting on the sands of Isstvan for weeks without so much as having a wash, I suspect the deeper colour is no bad thing. I should probably have added some stubble, but hey, maybe he doesn't grow facial hair, or that's his one grooming habit on Isstvan using one of his lightning claws to have a really close shave. I think I've got the look of matted hair done well though, even with the dynamism in the model. The face is a really beautiful sculpt overall - I'm very excited by it. 

Hope you like it! It has been far too long to finish off due to the painter's block! 

Comments very welcome.

Horus Hearsay. Third Edition? Flawless Blades!

Is it a massive trolling event by Games Workshop to launch Horus Hearsay? 

Is it a way to communicate that Third Edition for the Horus Heresy is coming?

It is all Alpharius' lie?

The new website launched by Games Workshop today called Horus Hearsay touts that third edition Horus Heresy is on its way soon. AND I'VE NOT FINISHED REVIEWING THE MARTIAN CIVIL WAR YET FOLKS. To try to be balanced, we can immediately reject the hypothesis that they are showing a push fit space marine sprue on the new site. That sprue belongs to the Flawless Blades recently released. It is just dyed green to support the Salamanders claim in the article. 

Let's switch to the d18 cited. Do d18's even exist? Well, yes they do. They might be far from standard fare, but I have seen them in the wild and can confirm that they exist. Although the one in the photograph here seems rather photshopped to say the least.

What about that dreadnought? I'm not sure. Looks like a leviathan at first glance, but its off kilter. Something lighter potentially?

This said, it ties in with some wild rumours spread earlier about the Salamanders being in the next big box release. If they do Mark 2 or Mark 5 armour in plastic that I'll sign up regardless of the rest of the boxes contents! If true. Saturnine terminators would be awesome too. 

But here is the problem. Almost everything on the new webpage seems to be a lie or manipulation of some kind worthy of Alpharius. Very weird advertising by Games Workshop either way.

To be honest, whilst there are some issues with second edition (looking at dreadnoughts in particular - could that image be a clue?!), I actually don't think they're that bad. I also don't think a three year cadence for a new edition is entirely called for either. Just my opinion. 

I'm hoping for a new boxed set with a new variant armour, and potentially a tidy up of dreadnought rules. Anything beyond that I'm not so sure. Either that, or its an excellent trolling effort going through some recent online rumours (cf., Salamanders). Hats off. 

Wargames Gallery: Caught in the Open

Somewhere on the sands of the Isstvan system, the World Eaters hunt down the dredges of the Iron Hands survivors and catch them out in the open. 

Will their reaction and over-watch be enough before contact is made on the charge?

Fiddlesome Solar Auxilia

I have now built 5 solar auxilia las rifle sections. I can't lie - I am finding it hard going!

I am finding the small parts to be highly fiddlesome to say the least. But that's not the worst bit. It seems - and I might be wrong - but it seems like the numbers on the sprues don't line up with the numbers of the parts in the instructions. Hence I have been guessing which left arm goes with which right arm. Eventually I just glued three rifle arms on to the torsos and dry-fitted the supporting arms to evaluate which worked best with what rifle arm. This was less than great.

The fiddly bits that caused me headaches though were the shoulder pads and the hip accessories. The grenades and the pouches were okay in the end once I'd figured out how to attached them onto the belt part. The spare rifle power packs remain something that I don't feel I've glued well into position on the front of the legs. And the shoulder pads were exceptionally fiddly to trim and shave the excess plastic off from. Some of these parts could readily come pre-attached with the plastic sprue to be candid. Hence although I will finish assembling the other 15, I genuinely need a break from these models and I'll focus on other bits of painting and assembling for the moment!

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Blood Slaughterer

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

3/5 stars. Reasonable, but not outstanding.

Background.

Line breakers. Carnage. Who else but the World Eaters would have thought to supplement their dreadnoughts with a mechanicum forged bunch of blades that runs quickly to get up close and personal. They are ultimately beasts as judged by their howls as they get close to their targets. Or friends. Its hard to tell.

Strengths.

With a movement rate of 9 inches, the blood slaughterers are relatively quick on the board. The rest of their stat line is good enough and very similar to a boxy dreadnought overall. 

They have some blades, but can replace these with a harpoon. The harpoon is worthwhile just to make your opponent I=1 to be honest. The re-roll on the charge is icing on the cake. The blades on the other hand are passable. 

Special rules like hit and run and furious charge help the model do what it does best. 

Weaknesses.

There's a problem with 2+ armour saves that this model can't do much about beyond rely on its rending rules with the blades. This is unfortunate. And it doesn't have the weight of attacks or brutal to be a massive priority target for your enemy. 

Overall.

A reasonable unit, but not an outstanding unit for what it does. There are probably better choices, but it is fluffy!

Solar Auxilia: First Model

Here's my first Solar Auxilia model assembled!

As with all models that are less chunky than a space marine, I always think that the parts feel a bit light weight and fragile. This particular model is nowhere near as bad as (say) dark eldar or Warhammer skeletones for that kind of feeling, but its always in the back of my mind. 

I like the fact that the torsos attach at the waist and I wished all space marine models still did that to provide maximum variety and the possibility of mix and matching as much as possible. The weapon feels a little flimsy compared to a bolt gun, but it is okay. I did not, however, attach a bayonet to the model which feels like it is in the exceptionally likely to be damaged by transportation and playing category. 

Overall I like the sculpt and the assembly was simple enough. I just have to churn out a full squad of these now which seems like a mammoth task ahead of me. Or maybe I'm just procrastinating. 

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Greater Brass Scorpion

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

5/5 stars. A very dangerous Lord of War for the traitor mechanicum.   

Background.

Who decided that a mechanized scorpion armed with lots of ranged weapons was a great design? Probably the fevered dreams of traitor Mechanicus is who. Despite the strength of its ranged weapons, those close combat claws are very much favoured and its blood lust is just as legendary.  

Strengths.

Treated as a knight, the scorpion comes with a dangerous array of ranged weapons. These include the scorpion cannon - a shredding, pinning, 9 shot heavy bolter. A pair of hell maw cannons which are flamers with torrent at S=7. Plus a demolisher cannon that also rends. 

If that's not enough those two mechanized claws are amazing. Brutal (2) on its own is great. But the scorpion also has some special rules that make this even worse like rampage and hammer of wrath (four!!). 

The whole thing isn't slow either with a movement rate of 10 which is great for this kind of creature. 

Weaknesses.

Rear armour = 12. That's all I've got under weaknesses. 

Overall.

Your opponents will not like you. Especially those that run dreadnought lists. Or Knight lists. Or frankly most things short of a titan.

World Eaters Loyalist Overseer Painted

Hi readers, I have completed painting the loyalist World Eaters Overseer model which I converted a few weeks ago to be holding a nemesis bolt gun. Of course, the one handed pose isn't perfect for the kick back, but I'm supposing the power armour servos will help him out with this. Either than, or he is just pointing it to indicate what direction to fire in for the las rifle section. 

The painting scheme follows the standard pattern for my World Eaters with whites and blues in the right locations followed by a lot of fun with a sponge applied black and grey, and then red contrast paint followed by blood for the blood god to add to the goriness. Hopefully the splatter comes from a distance here, but it really does add to the vibe regardless. 

I now have to decide how to paint up the las rifle section. Whites and blues are appealing here, it has to be said, over and above the paint schemes presented in the rule books and online. Not sure, but comments welcome. 

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Kytan Daemon Engine

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

5/5 stars. An excellent Lords of War for those who want an alternative to Khorne dedicated knights.  

Background.

Somewhere between a Ceratus Knight chassis combined with a blood thirster, the Kytan is everything that the demented Taghmata of Sarum could have ever have dreamed of - or had nightmares about. A big choppy axe for chopping things and a quality dakka gun would make even the most jaded Ork weep. 

Strengths.

The gatling cannon is very reasonable here and is similar to the standard castigator armament for comparison. Heavy 18 at S=6 is nothing to be ashamed of even at BS=3. 

The stat line is very reasonable overall, but the stand out is that the weapon skill equals six. This reinforces the primary role of the Kytan: to lunge into combat as quickly as possible. Heedless slaughter will help with this, but the Brutal = 3 axe is where the real shine happens. Combine with special rules like hammer of wrath and rampage, and this is a chaos knight equivalent who is capable of tearing up other armies that don't have an answer to either running out of the way, or an equal counter threat. 

Weaknesses.

You could say BS=3, or the side and rear armour being 12 are a weakness. You may be correct. But you'd also expect the controlling player to get into melee as soon as possible to mitigate all of these facts on the ground! 

Overall.

Really excellent, and capable of near unmatched board control in melee. It is one to watch out for if you are playing against it since it will really (really) hurt. This is also the reason why I'm giving it a rare 5/5 star rating. 

Wargames Gallery: Termite Pest Control

The Alpha Legion emerge from a termite, but the Iron Warriors move in position to conduct some pest control. 

[Spoilers: those thunder hammers and chain fists make short work of the termite and their support squad inside it.]

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Aetheric Dominion

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

3/5 stars. I wish that this rule was much more extensive. 

Aetheric Dominion.

The special rule "Aetheric Dominion" is given to dark mechanicum forces and represents the influence of one of the Warp's powers that be. 

Clearly within a single unit, there can only be one such dominion selected. And that unit cannot join another that has a different one. This is all well and good. 

What bothers me here is that in The Martian Civil War, there are only two - yes TWO - dominions to select between. This is more than disappointing. At least give us the core four chaos powers please? But no. 

Heedless Slaughter. 

Registering as the Khorne influence, the Heedless Slaughter dominion is to do as the title suggests. This rule forces you to charge within 8 inches of an enemy, but you can game play over ride this by shooting at a further away target and thus making the charge invalid. In addition, you get +1 charge distance, combat resolution, and sweeps which are all very appropriate. Its just the shooting that perhaps should be controlled a bit more arguably?

Malevolent Artifice. 

I see this as the Tzeentch one, but it seems to not quite be wholly appropriate either. The idea here is that the warp twists human invention to use it against them. If S<T from an incoming attack then you get to re-roll your armour save. I quite like this for engines with a good toughness value (at least better than a plasma shot?). Otherwise if you primarily have engines with a lower profile, then it might be a bit meh. Sure, sometimes you get lots of bolt gun fire incoming. But most of the time it'll be things like las cannons targeting your engines, so I suspect this dominion is a bit useless. 

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Scions of the Dark Forges

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

3/5 stars. New warlord traits for your dark mechanicum traitor forces. Some are sound, others are very limited. 

Scion of Cyclothrathe.
This forge world has plentiful electromagnetic storms which the mechanicum regularly shielded against. This gives your corrupted engines an improved resistance against haywire attacks (there's a table with 50% of the results being no effect which is nice). Admittedly, this is very limited, but also very fluffy. 

Scion of Xana II. 

This provides an advanced reaction once per battle. This improves an invulnerable save by one pip before making any rolls for that corrupted engine. This is very good and much more powerful, as well as being fluffy for the esoteric modifications that were regularly made by this forge world. 

Scion of Retlaxi. 

I could not point to Retlaxi on a map of the Imperium, but it is a secondary world that resupplies Legio Mortis. Basically when you take the last wound or hull point, it gives out a blast of S=5+1d3 in a random radius which also causes pinning. To me this is a bit of a Pyrrhic maneuver, but its okay so long as you keep in mind it also hits friendly units. 

Scion of Sarum. 

Take blood slaughterers as troops (they handily get line) and also as fast attack. Welcome to the World Eaters resupply world basically. This is nice, but clearly needs you to assemble a dedicated army. 

Overall. 

The default choice is likely to be Xana II for most players unless you have a particular Khorne orientation in which case you're looking at Sarum. Retlaxi is dangerous to yourself, and Cyclothrathe is situational but could be good. 

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Automata Malefica Rules

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

3/5 stars. Average overall, but good in parts! The automata malefica are the corrupted engines of traitor forge worlds and were created in great numbers during the Heresy. 

Praevians.
Arguably access to corrupted engines impacts the legiones astartes more than the mechanicum, but the chief way in which to gain access to them is via a traitor praevian. This is very simple: you take 1 or more praevian, and you get a maximum of 1 (and only 1) corrupted engine choice to include. This engine has to occupy its own force organisation slot (i.e., not the HQ like the praevian). This is very reasonable.

Corrupted. 

The corrupted rule as applied to engines does several things. Firstly there is Fear at a (1) level, but this can be incremented if it already has fear. Reflectively, they are also immune to fear themselves and instead of failing morale checks just takes d3 wounds instead.

Force weapons against them gain instant death, but its not really instant death, it is just 1d3 wounds instead. They could have just said that, so I'm not sure why there's this circular argument in the rules about it being called instant death to be honest. Oh well. 

Malefic Aegis. 

This one is much more straight forward: its just the invulnerable save. Again, not sure why they can't just call it that, but probably to do with the stacking of other invulnerable saves. Only cyber familiars and the like can modify these. 

Overall. Not too bad, just a bit clunky on the rule names to be honest!

Endryd Haar Painted in World Eaters Colours

Today, I finished up painting Endryd Haar of the Blackshields. But not quite as he became later on in the Horus Heresy. To be candid, I'm not a massive fan of the all black colour scheme of the Fangs of the Emperor Blackshields. So I wanted something different!

This is Endryd Haar in his original World Eaters colours - white armour and blue shoulder pads and back pack. Naturally, the most fun part of my method of painting the World Eaters is the chipping, weathering, damage, and splatter. I deliberately tried to not go over the top with the splatter since less is generally more when using this approach. And here it has worked rather nicely. I've done my usual two-step approach. This involved flicking red contrast paint at selected angles on to the otherwise finished miniatures, and then picking out come appropriate locations for the blood god technical paint to be applied. There's even a kill-count decal applied to the terawatt power fist here just to round things off. 

Of course, this kind of half obliterates the plan to have a distinct Blackshields force. That's fine. The new plan is to use my World Eaters detachment AS the Blackshields. The head canon here is that they're far too busy being angry at their former legion to re-paint their armour. Obviously. Hence, this is very early stage Blackshields, and probably with the Panoply of Old Oath. Somehow, I think I can make this work. Regardless, if I'm not using this miniature for Blackshields, he is obviously a character for the World Eaters either in a squad, or as a Praetor himself. He'll fit right in!

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Questoris Household Dark Blessings

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4/5 stars. The Dark Blessings are a replacement for the Household ranks and can only be taken by traitors. Some are really good, others a bit less so. Suggested knights are provided for each entry.  

Conqueror of Worlds. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The dark blessing version of the Seneschal. An auto-include for the big boss whose warlord trait provides access to reactions. Suggested Knight: Lancer. 

Heedless Slaughter. ⭐️

A free upgrade (probably from Khorne) that comes at the cost of WS-1 and BS-1, but gain Rage (2) if you have an armiger unit somewhere. I am torn on this upgrade. Rage is nice. But those negatives are bad. Very bad. I probably won't take it on balance.  

Malevolent Artifice. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Gain IWND +1 for each wound or hull point you inflict in close combat until the end of the battle. This is very, very nice, and worth the points cost. Suggested Knights: Lancer, Acheron, Questoris.

Encroaching Ruin. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

BS+1 and a bonus speed to armigers that start a turn next to it. Very nice overall. Suggested Knight: Questoris, and probably Asterius.

Putrid Corruption. ⭐️⭐️

Ablative organic mass that speaks of Nurgle. Loses movement speed, but gains unrelenting which lowers 1d3 wounds from a penetrating shot to just 1. This is okay overall, but not amazing. Suggested Knight: Unclear. 

Infernal Tempest. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Tzeentch (we think?) gives you psychic or sorceress powers. Warding grants an invulnerable pip, tempest is nice for its AP=2 but is short range. Suggested Knight: Questoris. 

Ravenous Dissolution.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

WS+1 and marked for death. This is quite strong and calls for a melee unit. Suggested Knights: Lancer, Questoris. 

Rapturous Sensation. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Slaanesh (given the title of the blessing) demands your attentions. No reactions unless you take a Ld test in a large bubble. This is strong, but situational. Suggested Knight: Unclear. 

Formless Distortion. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

WS+1, become a character, and get an ionic lash which is at AP=2 and S=10 with exoshock. Very nice indeed. Suggested Knight: Questoris.